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Hello all! Don’t you just love it when things start falling into place?

A couple of weeks ago, my parents informed me that the entire cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation from the first season will all be attending the Calgary Comicon/Expo this year, at the end of April. After hearing about this I first bought the 3 day event, then booked the time off for work. I then had to wait until today to buy the Star Trek ticket separately.

I got up at 8:30 this morning so I could get as good a seat as I could. I tend to find a hiccup problem with ticketmaster sometimes, where I will just select one person ticket, then click continue and it gives me four tickets. Then I have to go back and do it again. This happened this morning as well. I bought the Trek ticket, wanting to get the front row, but only managed to get the 5th row due to the aforementioned hiccup problem. Not to mention I’m sure quite a lot of people and radio/television shows were buying up tickets left and right this morning at the strike of 10:00 (9:00 my time).

My next step in this trip planning is to get a vehicle, as I plan on driving there. I will be staying at my parents place, and can bring my kitty for the trip. What is still left to be decided is whether or not I will be carpooling with someone from my meet-up group. Regardless, I’m still planning on driving, as who the hell wants to spend close to $500 for airfare? That’s ridiculous! I could be making car payments with that kind of money.

In total, this trip has so far cost me $180 for these tickets. That’s even less than what I paid for a gold ticket at the Star Trek Convention in Vancouver last June. For the kind of money I will save by taking in this event, as opposed to previously thinking about going to the Vegas show, I could buy all the photo ops I want! What I would love to get is a pic of me with the entire cast of TNG, but I don’t know if that will be available or how much that will be, but damn, that would be cool! I also want to get a photo op of me and Adam West, as, well, I’ve loved Batman since I was like two years old.

I’m more inclined to get photo ops than I am to get autographs, personally. While it’s true that it’s not good for a re-sale value, I honestly don’t care about money with regards to doing fan related things. I care more about getting that personalized thing that I can look at on a wall and smile. I mean, seeing myself with the cast of TNG, or even with Adam West, hanging on my wall, or using it as my Facebook photo, that would be sweet!

After I figure out which car I want to get and get it, my next step will be to plan out the driving instructions to get from here to my parents place, then from my parents place to the Expo, then from the Expo back to my parents place, then of course from my parents place back home. Of course, for all I know the car I will get will have a GPS in it or something handy like that, too.

Once that’s accomplished, plan out the food budget and the extra money in case I see something cool at the Comicon (really, I really really really want to get the fourth comic of the Elongated Man mini-series that was back in 1993 or so, as that’s the only one I’m missing and it really drives me nuts not having it).

I am so looking forward to this event. You have no idea…

I will likely blog about my entire experience at this Expo as well, so look for it around the beginning of May.

Thanks for reading. I don’t need no wah, wah!

Great news, everybody! I went to see a psychologist and he said, “you’re not crazy. You are just unhappy in your life. That’s all. There’s nothing medically wrong with you.”

Yay! I always knew that but was so sick and tired of doctors cramming anti-depressants down my throat.

I have been super busy as of late that I am starting to feel a burn out. As I had an appointment today, I previously decided to just use it as a vacation day. So now I have the rest of the weekend and today to just kick back, relax, but also prepare my presentation for my two classes next week.

After I left the appointment, I went to Chapters for the first time in a long time. I had been recommended a book by the psychologist, and a different book by my boss, so I thought I would try to find them both. While there, I spotted another Osho book that looked interesting, so I bought that as well. When I will actually find the time to read them is another story. LOL

As my previous posts have indicated, my friends and I have created a 60 second version of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (the one about the whales). It is now up on the contest page. If everyone who reads this could view it and click “like”, I would greatly appreciate it. The more votes we get the better our chances of being selected as a finalist. The top ten submissions get invited to an exclusive viewing party, and the winner will be announced. I personally would just love to attend the screening party. Although the $10,000 would be nice.

I am also on a mission to figure out which car I want to get, and have actually gotten a Consumer Reports Car Buying Guide. So this may take another month or so but I hope to have a car by the end of March.

Today I decided to call my old car insurance company in Alberta to get them to send out a letter about how long I was covered for. It took about 15 minutes, as the lady on the phone couldn’t find anything for my name, which shocked me because that was the only company I used in Alberta. As it turned out, because I also had apartment insurance with this company, and was married, it was in my ex-husband’s name. That bewildered me to no bounds. I was the one who arranged it all, I was the person who was making the payments, it was coming out of my bank account, and he didn’t have a license nor a car. So… why the hell was it put in his name? That is so misogynistic. Anyways, I did manage to get them to send me a letter but have forgotten that my printer is on the fritz, so I will have to wait for Monday to print it out at work. Sign it, scan it, and send it back to them. This is just a request form, incidentally.

I had a very bizarre night last night. After class I was waiting outside at the bus stop for my bus to arrive. While I was waiting I noticed a fairly large silhouette of a big bald dude in the window of a house across the street, right in the middle of the front window of the house. I couldn’t see his face at all as there was a back lighting effect, but it was pretty clear he was looking out of his window. “Why the hell would someone stand in their window and stare outside?” was the thought that entered my mind.

After about five minutes of trying to avoid looking there, but really not being able to, I decided to change my tactic. Earlier in school I had learned that most communications are through body language. So instead of trying to ignore him, I shifted to staring right back at him, with the same level of intensity he was giving out. I was sort of playing that childish “staring game” thing, you know, whoever looks away first is the loser. Not even a minute passes of this intense stare back at him, when he makes the “crazy” motion with the finger around his head at me, then left the window. “Oh, yeah…” I thought to myself. “I’m the crazy one. Whatever!”

I mean, really. What the hell was I doing? I was waiting for a bus. What was he doing? He was gawking at me. Who’s the crazy one in this picture? LOL At least I won the staring game, though.

Then when I was switching buses, a dude on the bus who clearly had way too much to drink or whatever, just starting vomiting on the bus floor. I jumped out of the bus back door, went back to the front and told the bus driver. It was so gross… Not to mention it really inconvenienced a lot of people really late at night who were trying to get home. The bus had to wait for a clean-up crew, so everyone was out of the bus, except the drunken idiot, who remained on the bus. I hopped on to a different bus that also gets me home, and that was that. But holy… that dude just made me nauseous.

Anyways, just thought I would give everyone an update. Thanks for reading.

Some day you’ll find it, the rainbow connection: The lovers, the dreamers, and me!

Hey all! It’s been an interesting and illuminating week for me.

Monday night I had my first Effective Communications class. It was great, and now the time has changed to half an hour earlier, which means I can catch a quicker bus route home. I was so happy about that, I actually gave a perfect Data’s “Yes!!”. Otherwise, I have to walk to catch a different bus for about 15 minutes, which post 10:00 at night is not something I really want to do.

The comment about the bus leads me to a new goal I have. As I was getting confident in getting the promotion with a raise, the thought came to me that with the extra money, I could afford to get a car. This would mean I wouldn’t have to get up so early in the morning, I could get to work in 15-20 minutes, I could go home after work and before classes instead of hanging around a strip mall, buying too much stuff because there’s just too much time to wait before class and not enough time for me to get home and eat and go to class by bus.

I know I’m trying to do the Green thing by taking the bus, but there are a lot of problems with the bus system in Richmond. Firstly, you have to deal with their schedules and even though they say buses can never be early, they usually are, so you end up missing it by literally two footsteps. This happened to me Wednesday night after work. Normally it takes me about 15 minutes to walk from work to the C93 Steveston bus stop. The bus normally shows up somewhere between 5:20-5:28. That day, I was literally (I am not exaggerating) two steps away from the bus stop, when I turned around and the bus I take was zooming past me like it had a fire under its ass. I know which driver it was too, as he’s notorious for speeding on that bus. So rather than wait another 30 minutes for that bus, I had to take the 403 to Brighouse, then catch the 401 (407 would work too) home. I was about 20 minutes past when I normally get home, but at least I didn’t have to wait outside in the chilly rain for 30 minutes.

With buses you also have to deal with surly drivers as well. I mean, one bus I took last week a driver just had to stop and open the bus door and give some girl heck for not indicating that she didn’t want him to stop, as she was waiting for a different bus. But I distinctly saw her wave the bus off. That kind of attitude is really stupid and inappropriate. It’s also fairly rare that you find a nice, friendly bus driver, particularly in Richmond. Indeed, even just earlier this month I was on a bus on a Saturday heading home after I got groceries, which meant I had a cart full of them. As some old guy gets on the bus, the driver immediately speeds up, without letting him get near a seat, then slammed on the breaks as the car in front of him turned to go into a mall parking lot. The old guy went flying to the ground towards the front of the bus, and everyone (including me) shot forward in our seats. I bumped my leg just under my knee on the edge of a seat corner, and it hurt for a couple of weeks after. He then blamed it on the car in front for “suddenly stopping out of nowhere”, but clearly he was following too closely behind the car in the front and driving too fast.

You do have to deal with the lead foots of the bus drivers too. Not only are they all speed demons, they also just slam on the breaks and push down so hard on the brakes that it almost gives everyone whiplash. I would rather be a couple minutes late personally.

Then there are the drivers that crank the heat up to ridiculously high temperatures. I mean, it’s like you step into a dryer that’s been going for about an hour, it’s that hot. So when the weather is a bit wet and chilly, and you step into the hottest bus, it immediately stuffs your nose up. Then you leave the bus and your nose drips due to the extreme weather changes. It’s ridiculous.

In addition to that, you have to contend with the other people, who cough and sneeze without covering their faces with their sleeves, or who wear way too much body fragrance or worse, those who just stop smoking and jump on a bus, who wreak of cigarettes so it’s almost like they are smoking on the bus. I have a very sensitive sense of smell, and I can literally smell a person smoking if he’s even two blocks away from me.

So all of these reasons are why I want my own car. But being a Green person, I want the best Green car I can afford. Right now, I’m toying between getting a Prius, an iQ, and a Smart Car, though I’ve heard some complaints about the latter one. I want to have the best mileage and least amount of gas used as possible. Ideally, I would get an electric car if I had my own place, but since I don’t, and don’t really have access to a plug in, I might have to go hybrid or something. Clearly, I will have to do some research on this one. Any ideas would be appreciated.

Thursday at work I received the  news that I will get the promotion, but without the raise initially, which kind of annoyed me. Basically, I am to take on the new responsibilities now, at the low, low price of $16.50 an hour for three more months, then after that an evaluation will happen and I will see my raise go up to $18.00 an hour until the beginning of next year, when I may see what I was asking for before – or more – after another review. So while I found that annoying again, I took a few minutes to compose myself and then said to myself, “Fine. Now I get to prove what I’m made of, finally. There will be no more excuses.” So that’s now my attitude.

However, not getting the raise does mean I have to hold off on getting the car for another couple of months. It’s kind of disappointing, but at least it gives me some time to get as much research done on this as I can. However, my boss has agreed to pay for the courses I am taking so at least there’s that positive note.

Thursday’s Supervision class had me figure out what type of boss I am using the DESA scale. I am a strong Analytical boss, with a pretty good Solid personality type backing me up. It was pretty accurate. The rest of the exercise has how we need to deal with the other types of bosses, which I hope I will find illuminating about how to deal with my very Dominating boss.

So that’s what I’m up to these days. I need to wind this up so I can get some things done today. Thanks for reading!

Superman never made any money saving the world for Solomon Grundy.

I can’t begin to tell you how busy I am as of late.

I still haven’t gotten the official okay from the boss yet about the promotion, as he was sort of in and out of the office a lot last week. It’s looking quite good but time will tell on that one.

Since I am being considered for this position, I’ve been working really hard and trying to come up with game plans for when I do get the nod. I have some ideas, but the beginning will be a fact-finding mission, as there will be a lot of homework to do and I will need a lot of information about how things work already before I can fix the problems. I’m really looking forward to doing this job.

Another thing that started last Thursday was my first night class, which was in Effective Supervision. The class is fairly light in terms of classroom structure, but the text book is dated back from the 80s, and I find some of the wording to be a little confusing at times. I haven’t done textbook work in a very long time. Also, we will all have to give written and oral presentations on a couple of topics, and I haven’t done any of that stuff in ages either. I hope it’ll be worth it. My Effective Communications course will start tomorrow night, maybe that will help me in this course as well.

In addition to these, I spent all of yesterday running around various locations around Metro Vancouver shooting the 60 second film of a Star Trek movie for a radio contest. I left home at around 9:30 am, and came home at around 9:30 pm. I traveled yesterday by bus, SkyTrain, bus again, carpool, carpool, carpool, carpool, Seabus, SkyTrain, and finally by bus. Not to mention my walking feet from time to time.

We filmed at three locations to do this, and some more filming will be getting done tomorrow with the Green Screen, which I won’t be able to see or do. Hopefully this will all be done in the next couple of days. I’ll post it everywhere when it does. Keep in mind, though, that we were on a tight deadline, and didn’t have much time to prepare costumes and so forth, so it’s really low budget, high cheese factor, which is perfectly fine, I think.

As predicted, I wasn’t able to sleep much the night before shooting. I couldn’t shut my motorcycle brain off for quite awhile, as the stress of everything I was taking on was starting to get to me. But yesterday was so worth it. We had so much fun playing Star Trek, acting and so forth. Many times we couldn’t help but laugh out loud. It was so much fun doing this, and I certainly hope we’ll be doing more movies, only this time with no tight deadlines to meet, just for fun. It was a well-needed diversion for me so I could just play and have fun with some wonderfully hilarious people. So thanks to everyone who helped out with it.

In other news, my diet/exericise thing isn’t quite starting yet. I find it hard to find the time and energy to exercise, and the stress was really making me make bad food choices, as I do deal with stress with food, which I know isn’t good, but what can you do. One of these days I’ll figure that out… I just have to figure everything else out as well. LOL

So, yeah, I just wanted to give an update as to what I have been doing this past week. It’s been fun and chaotic at times, but so worth it. Thanks for reading!

My motorcycle brain, remains to be explained, it’s like the summer rain.

And great news, everyone, this year, we get three of them! Yes!!

Today started as any normal, typical day. Tons of requests to do things from various different people, and handling them quickly and efficiently, as per usual. Then, just as I was finishing up one project concept, I get called into an office to talk to the second in command.

Typically, I get along great with her, so I was not at all worried when she called me into her temporary office (normally, she works in Europe, but is here to try to organize things). She started talking to me about the prospect of working as a Production Coordinator, Management position.

Basically, in a nutshell, I’m to figure out how the hell to fix the constant lack of communications problems plaguing our company currently, which is making it difficult to meet deadlines. She said because I’m so detail-oriented, she couldn’t think of a better person for the job. (YAY!!! Finally, my geekiness pays off!)

After describing a bit of what it is she thinks the job will entail, she mentioned her usual comment to my supervisor, how he should “use me” more often. I started thinking about myself, for once, and said, “While that sounds totally awesome, and I would love the opportunity, I will need more money to do this. In fact, the only thing keeping me from accepting this right now is compensation.” I know I can handle this task. I just want to be paid what I’m worth.

We started talking about numbers. I told her I would love to finally break through the $40,000 glass ceiling that’s been over my head forever and a day, and she said she’d mull it over with the boss. $40,000 is not unreasonable for a management position; some in this industry make $60,000+. I also said I will not do it for less than $18/hr definitely, but ideally, I’d like to make $20.

Whether or not that will work out is still up in the air, as the boss has been known to let me down from time to time, but with her working on him, too, there might be a chance. Cross your fingers, people!

Another thing that prompted this conversation was the fact that I mentioned to her I was planning on taking management courses part time in the evenings to get this training. Typically, I would keep such information away from the bosses, fearing they would think I was trying to leave the company if I did tell them. However, this time I decided to be blatantly honest about my intentions to further my career. I mean, 14 years is too long to be considered entry level, you know what I mean?

Apparently, she passed this news on to my supervisor and the boss, and everyone was really impressed that I decided to take this initiative. My supervisor even indicated that the company may even pay for the training, though I won’t hold my breath for that, but still, it would be nice.

It’s so funny, because normally I would shy away from telling people my intentions. The whole reason I wanted to get supervisor training was because the supervisor mentioned he could see me acting as a production manager some day, but I just need project management skills. Since this was the beginning of a new year, I decided to make it a goal for 2012 to get trained in management on my own, as I got tired of waiting around to see if someone else would initiate the training for me. In a very uncharacteristic of me sort of way, I decided to take action and do it myself, with the idea that only I will have my best interests in mind, so only I can make my life turn into whatever the hell it is I want it to turn into.

So these are two things I’m endeavouring to take on that started by me doing exactly the opposite of what I would normally do. I guess George Costanza was on to something when he decided to do the opposite of what his normal instincts would be and it paid off for him. As he said, “This is my new religion.” (Yes, I’ve watched a lot of television over the years.)

She has given me a task to figure out a game plan and write my own job description, or what I think it would look like over the weekend. I know my mind will be preoccupied with this idea all weekend long.

Anyways, I just wanted to share the good news. Friday the 13th – you rock!

Thanks for reading. Grey skies are gonna clear up, put on a happy face.

Hey all! I know, it’s been quite awhile since my last post. I’d like to say I’ve been busy, but alas that is not the case.

I think I was really tired. I didn’t really get a good vacation run this last year. The days I took off prior to this Christmas break was spent either as a couple of sick days, or the Star Trek convention last June (which is quite tiring after three full days of doing things), and my parents’ visit, which always leaves me a little stressed out in the end.

With this break consisting of nine straight days off, I was planning on tackling quite a lot of things I’ve been putting off. The only thing I have managed to tackle, besides my viewing of Smallville DVDs, was assembling my new dresser I bought from Ikea, partially with the money my parents gave me for Christmas. Oh! And I organized my bedroom closet, which was quite the ordeal. Then, all my steam seemed to run out of me.

For the last two days, I’ve been sitting down, watching TV and not feeling like doing much else. Of course, as with every year, the holidays is synonymous for me with eating tons of junk food. So perhaps why I feel so low is the constant amount of junk food I’ve been shoveling into my mouth as of the last few days.

Tomorrow I plan on getting out of this house. I need to, as I’ve been feeling like quite the hermit as of late. So I plan on possibly getting my haircut (maybe…) and going to a Star Trek meet-up later.

Other things I wanted to accomplish this break was to completely finish watching all of the Smallville DVDs, organize my office and it’s closet, write a few chapters of my hard-to-start novel I’ve been trying to write, and clean the place entirely. I don’t know if I will get that all done. I just finished Season 7 of Smallville, so there’s still 3 seasons left, each having 6 discs in them. I may not be able to finish that one off, though I will give it a try. The other things, I really need to find the motivation to get into doing.

Well, I’m getting a little sleepy, as it’s closing in on midnight soon, so I will wind this one up. Thanks for reading. Somebody save me!

Hey all! I’ve been thinking about what I’ve been writing about the past few entries, about feeling stuck where I am working now. I think I’ve decided to try a new approach.

Even though I am really underpaid for the amount of work I do, I have learned a valuable thing about myself while working at my current place. I know things. I have been working in print for coming up on 14 years. I know what works. I know how to organize filing system, both digital and cabinet kind. I know how to meet deadlines. I know how to do things right the first time, with no mistakes. I know how to do this job. My current position has shown me that, so I will be forever grateful for that.

My supervisor has commented on occasion that he’d like to see me get towards a production supervisor type of role in the company. The problem he says I have is that I don’t have the training for it. I’ve been taking the approach that I would get the training here, but that doesn’t seem to be the case.

A couple of days ago, as I was at work, thinking about what I could do to improve things, my normal “I don’t get paid enough for this” thought bubble entered my mind. Then it hit me: here I am, constantly being the passenger in the train of life. Always depending on others to help me get ahead, but constantly feel like I’m dragged down instead, or like they are holding my head under water at times. Why should I expect someone to help me out? They have their own problems to worry about. I need to worry about mine, and take a proactive approach instead of try to rely on “the system” to help me out of my rut.

I started looking into continuing education courses to see about getting some kind of project management course. I found a diploma program where I can take it one class at a time, as long as I finish it within three years. It’s a Management Skills for Supervisors Diploma Program. I should be able to handle the money financially, as in total I’ve calculated it to be around $1200, but if I take it one course at a time, it shouldn’t be too much of a hit to my wallet. It would be an investment into my future.

So that’s the plan now. I hope to actually have the diploma by the end of the year next year, or at the very least early the year after. If after I complete the course, I still can’t find a way to pry that rusty old wallet of the boss’s pocket open for some more, I will start looking elsewhere, with diplomas and experience, that should land me a well-paying job.

I think in this day and age it is really easy to lay back and blame others for your problems. Your parents, your job, your boss, politicians, etc. In order for you to move forward, you need to light a fire under your own ass and get yourself in gear. That is the only way. It’s taken me quite a lot of years to realize that. Power is in your hands. No one else’s. The old He-Man thing, “I have the power!”… Is that what that was about? Hmmm…

More evidence that the cartoons of the 80s were well worth watching. LOL

Thanks for reading. Happiness is a warm gun.

Hello! I’m feeling quite the need to vent, so stand forewarned — this will be quite the bitchy rant. The topic — my parents. As if that’s no big surprise.

As I have no doubt mentioned before, I didn’t have a good, strong family unit growing up. In fact, I’ve come to realize that I really think my parents both had serious mental health issues, and thus we were brought up with the same fears and unsocial behaviour that they always demonstrated.

It’s hard for me to accept the truth sometimes. There is a rather large mental health problem in my family, on both sides in fact. But after realizing some really important things about my own childhood and their inability to really raise me on how to live in a civilized world, I can’t help but wonder if there is a way out of this attitude.

I’m still waiting to hear about getting an appointment to get diagnosed officially. I don’t want meds, though. I want therapy. So I will stress that. I have way too many issues that are just not getting dealt with at all. They’ve been weighing me down, both metaphorically and literally speaking. I have gained back nearly every pound I lost two years ago.

I guess what has me so upset lately is the fact that my parents had a rather adverse reaction to my idea of going to the Star Trek convention in Vegas next year. I have changed my mind, mostly due to the fact that Creation Entertainment has actually pissed me off officially with the amount of autographs included in the Gold Package. I mean, for $800 I want all of their autographs. That’s just stupid that the only ones confirmed so far are the ones I really don’t care that much about.

But when I was still musing about the idea of going, they told me they were happy that I told them about this. To my brother, though, it was a completely different thing. They were actually freaking out about it, even saying, “She’s going to find out how people are really like.” What the hell do they think is going to happen to me?

It’s so stupid. I am 36 years old. I have never smoked, consumed alcohol or done any drugs that weren’t medically prescribed, and even those I can’t really stand. I also don’t gamble, with the exception of playing the lottery. The only thing I was planning on doing was going to the Convention and just staying in the hotel. I also grew up as a child of the 80s, watching quite a lot of 80s cartoons, when they all had mandates from the US government to try to teach valuable lessons in the episodes and little “The more you know” messages at the end of episodes. I grew up idolizing superheroes, which I firmly believe is where I learned my moral fibre from. The different between good and evil, good guys don’t steal, cheat, lie, kill, etc. Bad guys do. Really. That’s how I was raised. By television.

I have therefore never stolen anything, lied or cheated anyone, and I certainly have never killed anyone. What the hell do they think is going to happen to me?

The problem is my dad watches way too much TV, and has watched way too much Cops shows. They are also agoraphobic people too. The reason why my parents decided to move to Strathmore in the first place was because my dad was afraid of gangs because “too many foreigners were moving to town”. It’s crazy what fear drives people to do sometimes. Then I found myself being treated as an outcast in a rural hick town. They didn’t take kindly to me at all. Read Mell’s Hell for more details on that part of my life.

Then there’s my brother. He’s currently gone back to college to take some lab technician program in Calgary, so occasionally he goes home to do laundry or get groceries or what not. He tells me when he’s home dad becomes so controlling, telling him he can’t drive anywhere by himself, and that if he were to go my dad should drive him. I mean, really? He’s 34! Jeez…

My brother and I had a conversation about this that seemed to last for a couple of hours on the phone  yesterday. After having this chat, I’ve come to realize that I really think our parents have screwed us up completely. Being taught to fear people, because all they will do is try to hurt you, then getting stuck in that shithole of a town, being treated as the ugly duckling, it didn’t help my disposition in life at all.

I guess what bothers me the most about this is that they weren’t really telling me they were upset about it, but told my brother. They are always trying to pit my brother and me up against each other, mostly because they have issues with dealing with their own siblings so they want us to have the same dynamic. I always tell him what they say, and vice versa. Then I got that birthday card. It reads:

“Daughter! It’s your birthday, and you can celebrate any way you’d like, do whatever you want… There are NO limits… Except: DON’T stay out too late, DON’T talk to strangers, DON’T leave the country, DON’T do anything that would put you on the evening news, DON’T get tattooed… anywhere, DON’T write your name on the walls of any public place, DON’T board any UFOs, even if the creatures seem friendly, DON’T eat anything you can’t spell, DON’T do anything that you wouldn’t want the world to find out about… And DON’T forget to have a great time!”

Then there’s the writing my mother puts on the card: “These rules are just to let you know we care.”

… really?

That’s a card you give to a teenager as a joke. Not a card you give to a 36 year old as a serious message. I know that there was a hidden message in there from them. They didn’t want me to go to Vegas, the “DON’T leave the country” line.

So, I’ve decided, as a social experiment if you will, to tell my brother to tell them I told him I’m going to Vegas anyways, but couldn’t find anyone else in my group who wanted to go (which that part is true), and am not telling them because I don’t want them to know I’m going by myself. I just want to see how their response to that is. I’m predicting it will not be received very well.

And also, for the record, I have taken quite a lot of self-defense courses throughout the years — I even know how to flip a guy — so I really can take care of myself.

If they do not take it well, which is what I am predicting will happen, I will have to set them straight. I’m getting to a point where I want to make a choice to completely rid myself of them once and for all. Every time they visit me, it enrages me. Every time I talk to them on the phone, I feel completely like I have to be their sounding board, or counsellor, and that always annoys me. They have royally screwed me up. What the hell makes them experts on anything?

Besides, if my dad can completely stop talking to his sister for most of my life, which is really his only blood relative he has that he knows about, then why can’t I stop talking to them? I learned from the master, after all. I even took a page out of my parents’ book by completely moving out of province to get away from them, as they did to get away from their’s when they were much younger than I was when I did it.

I am strongly thinking this upcoming year will be the year to end all of the bullshit once and for all. To set the stage for healing and figure out who the hell I am and what the fuck it is that I want to be. That’s my goal, perhaps has been my life’s ambition. I just can’t keep living this separate life, away from people. I moved to a more heavily populated area because I wanted to be around more people and find a place where I fit in. I am still in search of finding the people to fit in with, but I can’t really do that until I have myself figured out anyways.

Thanks for reading my rant. Isn’t it a pity, now isn’t it a shame? How we take each other’s love, and cause each other pain? Forgetting to give back. Isn’t it a pity?